Kinetica
by Lady Argos
Summary: Young racer Ava Giovanni admires the racer Siba Castron, who was killed in a racing accident not too long ago. When she finds out that Siba's death may not have been an accident, well, that's when the story really picks up...
1. Prologue

PROLOGUE 

_The music blared in Siba Castron's ears, and she reluctantly flicked a gloved hand at her helmet to lower the volume. She nervously paced back and forth at the starting line, going over her mental checklist as she waited for the minute call. _Wheels replaced – check. Suit repaired – check. Helmet...gloves...joints oiled...check_. Eventually, there was nothing else to do but wait. Siba jumped slightly as a loud horn shot through the air, cutting through the music in her helmet. There was a moment of dead silence, then the racers began to move towards the track, and the spectators began to gamble on the outcome of the race. Reporters ran hunched over next to the racers in the hopes of getting one final statement, but usually to no avail. _

_Siba lined up at her position at the line, and the music continued in her ears, helping her to relax, to focus._

_"You're gonna lose this race, girl. You don't stand a chance."_

_"Face it, punk. Your winning streak is over. Why don't you save your dignity and drop out now." Siba couldn't tell who it was that spoke, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Only the race mattered. Only the race. A human voice, sounding mechanical through her helmet, proclaimed, "_Three...two...one...go!_" Siba hunched down and accelerated, easily pulling ahead of the rest of the racers. The instant she was clear of the pack, she began to go through her graceful routine of stunts designed to impress the spectators while helping her to calm her nerves. Unfortunately, she became so wrapped up in her stunts that she failed to hear the sound of someone coming up behind her. Indeed, she barely recognized the fact that she was coming up on a jump. Part of the routine's benefit was that it helped to relax her, and coupled with the music that was still playing, it could be argued that during a race, Siba was not in the same world as the rest of the competitors. She took the jump perfectly, as always, but unknown to her, at the moment of her takeoff, she had been brushed ever so lightly by one of the other racers. _

_It hadn't been much, but with a Suit as light as Siba's, it was enough. Siba became aware that something was wrong as she began her descent towards the track. Something was very wrong. Siba tried to compensate for her disastrous takeoff, but it was too late. Siba landed in the worst possible way a racer could, her right leg pinned underneath her body as she skidded down the track. The rest of the racers flew past, none of them willing to take the time to help a downed racer out of their own race time. Suddenly a dark shadow fell over the downed Racer. She tried to see who it was, but was too weak from the fall. She heard a deep chuckle above her head, and thrashed wildly, desperate to get away._

_"You were warned, Siba. Now you pay the price."_

_"That's..._Racer_...Siba...to you," she breathed. The unseen voice chuckled again._

_"_Former_ Racer Siba, I believe. Now, I do apologize for being rude, but I have a race to win." The wheels moved away, and Siba was left alone on the track. She gathered enough strength to lift her head, and saw her helmet perhaps five feet from her back wheels. The helmet had just been installed with a communication device that would connect her with the people at the starting line, but it did her no good if she couldn't reach it. Finally, she lay her head back down on the cool track, knowing that she would not be discovered missing for at least another nine minutes when she did not finish the race. The knowledge was dark enough that Siba finally gave in and sank into the empty blackness of unconsciousness. Nearby, soothing music still played from an abandoned helmet._

**Be kind...this is my first attempt at fanfic...but please do review... Thanks much! The Lady**


	2. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

The racer angled around the curve, came out of it just as smoothly, and activated her boost. The yellow-orange flame strips extended nearly ten feet behind her, and she quickly swiveled to pick up a yellow bonus crystal. It was her fifth. Infinite Boost a mechanical voice said through her helmet, and the racer automatically switched boosts. Now the flame strips were fog colored and extended somewhere around twenty feet behind her. She instantly shot to the lead, and held that position throughout the rest of the race, easily finishing first. The race placing order appeared translucently on her helmet, and she switched her Suit to autopilot so she could take a look at the order.

_Congratulations, _Dusk_, you finished first_ flashed above the scoring order. She hadn't just placed first, Dusk thought as she coasted to an easy stop by the track exit. She had beat the second place finisher, one Silkut, by a full six seconds! In Kinetic racing, that was a veritable eternity. As she observed the rest of the placements without much interest, another racer pulled up alongside her.

"Congrats, Ava," the other racer said. Racer Ava Giovanni, racing name Dusk, swiveled her head to her left.

"You know better than to call me that here," she admonished the other racer, her voice coming out distorted through the helmet's thin breathing vent.

"Sorry...Dusk."

"Never mind. Come on. Let's get you cooled off and out of that Suit. You did good for your first race." The other racer followed Ava off the track, both of them rolling slowly so as not to push their Suits too hard.

"Oh, man. Gabriel's going to kill me." Ava twisted agilely around.

"What now?" she asked. Gabriel was her mechanic, and he had been named so by his Kinetic-crazy mother after a track known as Gabriel's Horn.

"Look at this!" The racer held up a bright pink metal-clad arm. A bright pink metal-clad arm with an inch long gash in it, Ava revised after a closer look.

"It's not as bad as it looks," she began, but the other racer interrupted.

"This was a new Suit, Dusk, and now look at it!" She twisted around with agility to rival that of Ava. "It's covered in scratch marks!" _In fact,_ Ava mused as her companion rattled on; _it could even be said that her agility rivals that of the great Siba Castron herself!_ Too late, she realized that she had missed something.

"Sorry...I was thinking about something."

"The race? I can understand," the girl said sympathetically. "I can see how you got so addicted to it, Ava. But I said, 'do you think Mom'll let me try for my Racer license once I graduate school?'" Ava smiled. This other racer was her sister, Xia, who raced under her own name now that racing was more or less legal, and Racers did not have to fear arrest or worse. Xia was only eighteen to Ava's twenty, but the two were more than sisters; they were friends. When Ava had begun to take interest in the as-then-illegal sport of Kinetic racing, Xia had wanted to try it. Ava had been only twelve at the time, however, and Xia was ten. Ava's mother had not wanted her daughter to be racing, but since the girls had...forgotten...to mention not only the danger of the sport, but also the illegality of it, she had reluctantly agreed. Ava's good school friend Gabriel, another racing fan, agreed to work as her mech, so Ava didn't have to worry about making her own Suit tune-ups as some of the others did.

Around the same time Ava started to get interested in racing, a superstar was making a name for herself on the other tracks worldwide. Her name was Siba Castron. Young Ava had decided that when she got older and began winning races, she wanted to meet the great Racer. But it had not been meant to be.

When Ava was sixteen, Siba was at a track called Orbital Junction, deep in space. Technically, of course, it was restricted for the astronauts only, but that hadn't stopped Racers before. Anyway, everyone in Ava's town who was even remotely interested in racing met in the underground to watch the ThinScreen broadcast of the race. It had begun beautifully, with Racer Siba doing her acrobatics that had long dazzled young race fans everywhere. But something had gone wrong. On one of the landings, Siba had slipped, and gone down. The entire race community jumped to its feet, craning their necks to see better, but the camara had moved on, following the pack. Ava had sat down hard, feeling numb. This was _Siba_! She couldn't be taken out by such an easy jump! But she had been. Siba's body was never found. It was then that Ava's mother had forbidden both of her children to continue racing, having heard how dangerous it was. Nothing they said could change her mind.

A few months later, the E-FIRE had swept through the city. It was an advanced version of a computer virus, sucking power from all of the energy sources in the city away to an unknown location. The energy and power that had been the people's businesses and source of income was gone. Finally, after much begging, pleading, and once threatening to run away, Ava's mother had allowed her to go back to racing. And race Ava did, with a vengeance. With her winnings, the Giovanni family was one of the wealthiest families in the city. When Ava had graduated school two years later, she had applied for her Racer's license, racing having become one of the most respected and profitable sports ever. Improvements were made. Sponsors were selected, Suits were improved, tracks were moved and upgraded, and the Racers now got the publicity of the superstars that they were. Of course, they had always gotten publicity, usually in the form of an arrest, and occasionally in the form of a rogue reporter looking for a top story, but now, Kinetic racing was legal. In honor of this newfound sport, when the city was rebuilt, it was named Kinetica. With effort, Ava brought herself back to the present, and to her sister's question.

"I'm sure Mom'll let you get your license soon," she replied. "After all...who saved the family?" Ava and Xia shared a smile, and slowly rolled out together, side by side.

_She could remember nothing. Who was she? Why was she here? Where, exactly, was here? She opened her eyes. The world remained black. She blinked wildly, but nothing changed. She lifted her hands to touch her eyes. Yes, they were open. She began to claw at them frantically, desperate for her sight back. Nothing worked. Then there were hands grasping her wrists, gentle, but firm._

_"You must take care not to damage yourself any further," a deep, soothing voice said, coming from somewhere near her head. "That was quite a fall you had there." _Fall..._ she mused. _Fall...yes, quite a fall..._ She sat up suddenly. _I remember...


	3. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2 

The racer known only as Cyan paused at the entrance to the track. She took a deep breath and tried to stop her shaking. _It has been so long..._ Cyan carefully rolled onto the track, her wheels shaking so bad she almost wiped out. Cyan accelerated gently, careful not to go too fast too soon. She took the turn easily, and slowly began to relax as she felt the air rush soothingly by her face. Once again she felt the joy of racing. She straightened out to the turn and came up on a jump. She started to take it automatically, letting habit take over. Suddenly her muscles tensed with unrestrained panic. She couldn't do this! She braked at the last minute, and the easy jump that she had taken so many times before seemed suddenly as wide as a racetrack itself._ I can do this. I have to do this._ Cyan tried again, but was unable to follow through with the jump. _Maybe if I start at the bottom again, and work my way up...just like I did when I first started racing..._ Cyan turned and rolled off the track.

Ava circled the Macropolis track. One advantage to living in the city of Kinetica, she decided, was the free access to any race (except the Seasons, of course) at Macropolis. It being her home track, she knew the thing backwards and forwards (though her helmet hated it when she went backwards, and eventually Ava grew tired of it constantly repeating **wrong way** and turned around), and had Gabriel not banned her from trying, she probably would know it upside down, too.

Ava pulled in behind some of the other local racers and revved her engine. All around her, racers were in various states of anticipation. Some were calm as an Old Earth lake on a summer day, others were as jittery as mice, jumping at the smallest noise. Then it came. The Macropolis loudspeaker, sadly outdated, for all the money Kinetica had been bringing in lately, came to life with a sharp _squeeeeeal_. Three...two...one...go! And they were off.

Ava pulled easily ahead of the other racers, taking the jumps as though she had been born doing them. Expertly, she avoided the anti-grav cars (no track could afford to be placed in a people-free environment) and within seconds Ava was in first place.

Due to the lightness of her Suit, she had to watch herself on turns. Her Suit didn't have the top speed that her sister's did, and it wasn't made to muscle other racers off the track like the tanks were, but it had been custom built for her back in the illegal days of racing and had been as light as possible while still allowing a maximum of protection. So if she didn't have the top speed of Xia or the grip of Argos, it didn't matter to her. This was _her_ Suit, and both she and it had been through the E-Fire together. They could survive a little Macropolis race!

Ava fairly flew around the track, finishing an easy first, and eight whole seconds in front of the second-place winner. She didn't really need the practice, she mused as she rolled off the track to collect her prize. She only participated in the races because she had nothing else to do. Besides, her mom refused to fund her travels to another track, and Ava didn't have the finances to send herself. So until her mom changed her mind about the Seasons, Ava was stuck doing the free Citizen Practice Races (with the occasional Single Race thrown in when enough visiting Racers stopped over) at Macropolis.

_Someday,_ she promised herself as she rolled back to the starting area. _Someday I'll have my chance. Someday I'll make it to the top. I'll be the best Racer ever, after Siba Castron, of course. Someday..._

_**Thanks to my reviewers - I finally managed to get this into its own category, so yay for me. Review and tell me what you think - sorry the chapters are so short.  
**_


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